


Awkward Questions

by insanityinside



Category: Dororo (Anime 2019)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-10
Updated: 2019-03-10
Packaged: 2019-11-14 23:48:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18062525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insanityinside/pseuds/insanityinside
Summary: Little Tahomaru asks some awkward questions.





	Awkward Questions

**Author's Note:**

> I think the anime implies he doesn't even know that much, so this might be sort of AU? Maybe? 
> 
> Anyway, I've been kinda wanting to write this for ages, but never got around to it. Then I realised that this may be the best possible moment to share it with the world.

Tahomaru plays in the front yard of the mansion. He imitates his father, as children so often do. Running back and forth, pretending to be riding on horseback, he shouts orders at an imaginary army, no doubt, leading it to a glorious victory. He does not understand that out there, on the battlefields of the real world, people kill and die every day in ways that have nothing to do with glory. He doesn't need to understand that yet. He is five years old and has a vivid imagination.

He is such a lively child, too. Almost as if, his mother catches herself thinking, as she watches him from inside the house, he inherited all the joy of life his brother never got to experience. For a moment, she looks away from the boy. She wants to be a good mother, she really does, but sometimes her gaze wanders toward the little headless statue in the corner of the room, and then her mind wanders, too. All the way back to that day...

This time the boy notices the look on her face. He runs over to her, barely stopping to kick off his sandals. He sits down on the tatami next to his mother and his gaze follows hers.

  
'Why do you keep that around, Mother,' he asks 'if it makes you sad?'

The woman sighs. How can she explain this to such a carefree child?

'It doesn't make me sad,' she says calmly 'It just keeps all of my sadness in one room. So that I will not be sad all over the place.'

'I see.' Her son smiles brightly. 'Then why don't you lock it away somewhere you don't come very often? You don't have to be sad, if you don't want to!'

It's such a simple solution, it makes her laugh, just a little.

'No. I am not ready to do that.'

'Why not?'

'Because sometimes you need to remember something, even if it's not a happy memory.' She hesitates. How much is he ready to hear? How much is she ready to tell? But at last, she continues 'You see... You could have had an older brother.'

'Huh? Then why don't I?'

It is too late to stop now. She has no choice, but to tell him as much as his innocent mind can handle.

'He was born...' She hesitates for a moment. 'very ill. He died when he was still a little baby.'

Her heart tells her this is a lie. She never saw him die! But her mind tells her it must be the truth. How could he live, and why would she want him to? What kind of existance could such a child lead? What kind of mother would wish such an existance unto her own child?

'There is no grave,' she says at last 'No mark of his existance outside of this house. Your father doesn't like to talk about it.'

'I bet he's sad about it too.'

She thinks that this is the part no child, and, for that matter, no mother, will ever be ready for. Her husband's reaction haunts her nightmares so much more than the strange appearence of her firstborn.

'He is dealing with it quite differently than I,' she says diplimatically.

'Will it make you less sad if I sit here with you for a while?'

A vague smile is the only response she can think of. And for a few minutes they sit there together, mother and child, thinking about what might have been. Then Tahomaru gets bored and runs off to play outside again.

He is playing a different game now, his mother notices. Imaginary army long forgotten, he slashes and stabs at the air with his little wooden sword, happily sparring with an invisible opponent. And perhaps, he is imagining another boy, just over a year older than himself. Or maybe not, but the thought makes his mother happy.

 

 

 


End file.
